


Family Photos

by canterville



Series: Collisions [3]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M, embryonic Kalique and Titus, the strange things Balem Abrasax goes on about when he's wasted beyond belief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 13:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3530687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canterville/pseuds/canterville
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fun with the Abrasax photo album is not traditional fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Photos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starmirror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starmirror/gifts).



Even from the other side of the room, it is apparent that Balem is dead drunk. The bottle dangling from his fingers is, of course, the first indication. The second is that he is sprawled on his back, limbs hanging off the edges of the longue. Third, there are two more bottles on the floor, both of them empty. The lights are down so low that they flicker like simulated candlelight. Shadows play at Balem’s sculpted chest, and his gorget gleams a darker gold in the gloom. It’s a surprise he notices Jupiter approaching.  
  
“There you are…” he whispers. “You will find me wherever I go, won’t you?” The sharp _clink_ of the bottle against the stone floor startles Jupiter, but Balem barely blinks, as if he has already forgotten it ever existed. He lifts a languid hand, looking to the empty palm, and then is still again.  
  
“Are you –?”  
  
“ _Quiet!_ There’s something I wish you to see.”  
  
A twitch of his fingers invites her near, but Jupiter is cautious. She knows exactly how terrible Balem can be, and whatever poison he poured down his throat isn’t likely to help. “Jupiter,” he pleads. “Jupiter, come and see.” He fumbles along the side of his neck until his quivering fingertips find the node behind his ear. The projection fills the room, and the sight rouses a shout from Jupiter. Side-by-side are embryos, so massive that it is impossible to imagine how incredibly tiny they must have been. They hang suspended against a black background, displaced and not quite human, yet.  
  
“Balem, what the f –”  
  
“My mother,” he interrupts sharply, “my mother crafted these thousands of years ago. Designed them with the care we devote to the seeding of planets, a universe contained in each. Hundreds piled upon hundreds, thousands compounding into millions, trillions, a line of zeroes extending on into the great darkness we hang in, waiting to be plucked and processed.”  
  
“You mean, these are your –”  
  
“My siblings. I was already grown when Kalique was smaller than a single speck of dust.” Balem smiles off into nothing, into a time so remote that Jupiter cannot begin to conceive of it. “That one,” he points to the curled-up embryo on the right, “is Titus. I sometimes wonder why mother made something designed to disappoint. Are his appetites her mistake? Or is it that she loved him better? She birthed him, herself. Only him.”  
  
Jupiter frowns, but for once, she keeps her questions to herself, too afraid to ask. She almost hopes Balem will leave it there, but he stares intently at his yet-undeveloped siblings, and continues.   
  
“She would say that she loved us all the same,” he breathes, “but then she would be alive… And lying.” His head lolls to one side on the cushion. He looks at her, but his eyes are glassy, bright and unseeing. The careless smile he flashes her way raises the hair on the back of Jupiter’s neck. “She didn’t make us to be loved.”  
  
Suddenly, his eyes snap shut, and he pinches the bridge of his nose.  
  
“I’m dizzy,” he mumbles. It’s Jupiter who reaches out, and runs her fingers along the node behind his ear, letting the room flood back in, so the sight of the embryonic Second and Third Primaries can begin to fade from memory. “I’m dizzy,” Balem mutters, again. Little by little he stirs, propping himself up on his elbows. He stays upright long enough for Jupiter to slide onto the longue, and then collapses into her arms, his head in her lap. She presses her fingers to his lips when he parts them, again, trying to speak. “What –”  
  
“Shh. That’s enough for now.” The morose furrow in Balem’s brows leaves him looking lost. He turns his head just enough to free his lips from her mollifying fingers.  
  
“What did we do to make you _hate us_ so much?” he asks, and seeing there is no hope of an answer, he leans his head against her belly, and sinks into a fitful sleep.


End file.
